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The Power of Love

by duncanr

Every year, around 20 people commit suicide by jumping off the 500ft cliffs at Beachy Head.

The news that coatsguards on Sunday night had found the bodies of a couple who had thrown themselves off the cliff would have elicited no more than a brief mention – competing as it was against more newsworthy items such as the ongoing row over MP’s expenses claims, and Susan Boyle’s shock defeat by Diversity in the BGT final on Saturday, if it had not been for one thing. One gruesome detail. The body of a child – stuffed into a haversack was found alongside the bodies of the two adults.

The first thoughts of many on hearing this news were perhaps dark thoughts about the motives and actions of the parents of the child. As more details became known, however, what emerged was a beautiful ‘love story’ with a tragic ending.

Five year old Samuel Puttick had been confined to a wheelchair following a car crash when he was 18-months-old. A week ago, he was taken ill with meningitis. When doctors advised his parents, Neil and Kazumi Puttick, that there was no more that could be done for Sam they begged that he be allowed home to die there.

Forensic tests show that Sam passed away on Friday night. His distraught parents who lived for Sam could not bear to live without him and decided to end their lives together – as a family. The couple jumped to their deaths from Beachy Head with two haversacks – one containing the body of their beloved son Sam – the other, his favourite toys

These poor parents must have felt like they lost their precious son twice in a few short years. They managed to survive and eventually thrive after the first tragedy which paralysed him, the video’s from their family website were beautiful.

I guess they couldn’t see the point in going on after he died, which is totally understandable.

When the Egyptians buried a Pharaoh, they killed and entombed his servants with him so that he would have servants to look after him in the Afterlife.

This couple loved and adored little Sam and devoted their life to looking after his needs. One can’t see into their minds but one can speculate that part of what drove them to take their own lives and that in the ‘presence’ of their dead son was a combination of not being able to face the thought of a future without him and a wish to join him in his next journey and to continue to care for him in some afterlife ?